Divas Do It Better!!

Romance News is up this month with the usual wonderful bits and pieces, but this month's issue really celebrated The Romance Divas and their writing. Of particular note were Diana Castilleja, Cassidy Kent, and HA Fowler, who got raves from our e-book reviewer, Ellie McBride. Be sure to check them out, along with Lisa Kleypas, Jacquie D'Alessandro, Susan Sizemore, and others.

And don't forget to enter our contest!

Color Me Stupid

I've never been terribly vain, though I am often self conscious enough to worry about first impressions JUST enough to put an effort in. Love my Bare Minerals makeup because it's simple and actually works. Love having natural curls installed in my hair so even I can't mess it up. And I've always said I sort of looked forward to gradually going silver.

Just not all at once, dammit.

So the other day I was thinking about hair and making the decision to give mine a short breather, having installed several sets of natural curls in a row. (That's clever girl for permed it too much.) I visited the salon and had my locks, which generally hit my shoulders, shorn closer to my noggin. Examining my ebony tresses (shut up, it's my blog), I noticed a rather... err disturbing development.

Now look... there's NOTHING wrong with going naturally silver, seeing those glinting strands woven in with the dark. But holy hell! I had buckets of thick, straight, very dingy (what the ^#$*@& happened to SILVER???) beigey-cream strands all over the sides of my head, sticking out like sore... err... hairs against my dark hair. Well blow that for a lark! The stuff was on top, too!

Back up, Father Time, this overnight bull was never part of the deal.

...I'm chemically enhancing my own diminished
cortical circumference with
the slight added bonus
of tonal deepening.

Clairol Herbal Essence here I come. Besides, I rationalized, my hair is terribly fine and thin and this will thicken the strands. So I'm not ACTUALLY covering ding-- err-- dishwate-- err-- silvery grey. I'm chemically enhancing my own diminished cortical circumference with the slight added bonus of tonal deepening. Plus, there's herbs and crap in here, so it's practically a rainwater rinse.

I colored, timed, lathered, rinsed, repeated, and thought... by gawd, that number 28B looks EXACTLY like my original, un-enhanced, cortically circumferentially challenged hair! Not bad.

Then, the following morning, I awakened to discover that something was definitely wrong with my metabolic regeneration rate or something like that because, dammit, MY ENTIRE HEAD WAS COVERED IN THE SHORT, THICK, WIRY, DINGY-BEIGE HAIRS AGAIN!!!!

In my understandable hysteria, I began running my hands frantically through my hair, (which felt great, btw, that herbal crap is fantastic!), when a brand new wave of panic hit me. Not only was the nasty, thick, dingy hair all over my head, it was FALLING OUT like a Christmas tree's needles in January. I was SHEDDING... like some kind of... some sort of... umm...

Err. Hehe. Hey, that hair is exactly the same color as Max. Haha. Isn't that funny, hahahaha. And Max was flopped over my head on my pillow on the couch the past few nights... ahahaha. Ahehehe. A-he-he-herm.

Oh, shut up... like you've never done it.

Crunchy Honey Mustard Chicken

If you, like me, are always looking for something new to do with chicken, I have a tip for you. Out of ideas, and busily plowing through a bag of my favorite snack, I came up with this little doozy the other night and it was a huge hit. If you live in an area where Snyder's Honey Mustard Pretzel Pieces are not available, I apologize in advance for tempting your taste buds.

Chrissy's Crunchy Honey Mustard Chicken

2 cups Snyder's Honey Mustard Pretzel Pieces, ground
2 lbs chicken tenderloins (or substitute whatever chicken bits you like)
4 tablespoons good cooking olive oil

Preheat oven to 475°. You may want to prepare the dressing (directions below) ahead of time. Grind the pretzel pieces in your food processor until they are the same consistency as bread crumbs. Coat your tenderloins in just a tiny bit of olive oil (roll them around in a large dish til they are all a bit shiny). Roll the tenderloins in the crumbs, and place them in a baking dish. Place on cookie sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until chicken is golden and crispy.

Over the top, drizzle the sauce below-- or put it into bowls for dipping.

Dipping and Drizzling Sauce

1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
4 teaspoons good Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Whisk together all ingredients. This can be stored in the refrigerator up to 1 week.

I Can't Believe He's Not Blowing...

Fabio Goes TROPICAL!!
Anyone Wanna Get Lei'd?

Tropical storm Fabio has yet to be promoted to "hurricane" Fabio, but he looks simply fantastic in a funky King TittyMeiMei head-dress and Hawaiian Tropic Body Oil. If things keep... err... blowing with increasing force maybe he'll earn the big promotion and get to knock things down and EVERYTHING!

Janet Butler Plays Angels and Devils with Romance

Last month RWA's magazine published a meandering rant written by the now-infamous (mission accomplished?) Ms. Mentor-- aka Jan Butler.
Butler wants to tell you what you can read. Wellllll, actually, she wants to define romance according to HER standards. Her standards are hard to measure, since she can't seem to focus on a topic, and has no concept of logic. "Romance," she writes, "isn't about just any 'two people' celebrating 'love in its many forms.' "

Well, umm... yes, it is. What romance may be for Ms. Butler is her call. What romance is for me, my readership, the president, and/or anyone who ISN'T Jan is THEIR call. (Jan's version? I'm getting a mental image of a six pack of Pabst, Lee Greenwood on the Hi-Fi, and a quick tumble beneath the crucifix directly above the headboard... eyes closed, cuz Jesus is watchin'!)

Butler goes on to head off any nay-sayers at the pass:

...spare us the arguments about "censorship" and "inclusiveness." Preference for "one man, one woman" stories represents what RWA has always claimed is romance's target demographic: college-educated, married, middle-class, monogamous, and moral...

You know, Terry Pratchett says that excessive punctuation is the sign of a seriously deranged mind. (Paraphrasing, here... Pterry isn't the kind to mind.) I look at all those innocent words trapped in Ms. Butler's wrought iron quotes and itch to release them back into the wild. I bet it takes her ages to type, what with all the pauses to make quotations in the air as she talks to herself. Does that count as a nervous tic? It certainly makes ME nervous!

This makes me even MORE nervous:

Only in recent years has a vocal (translate: shrill) minority tried to drive RWA's focus off that path, under the guise of "broadening its horizons." But refusing to define romance according to the parameters it has held for centuries doesn't "broaden" anything.

I've looked EVERYWHERE for my copy of The Official Guide to Romance as Defined by Everyone Who Knows More than You and can't find it. If any readers out there have their copy handy, please send me the passage to which Butler is referring here. Romance is a genre elusive of dating, but I liked what I read over at Wikipedia:

"Unlike the novel (nouvelle romaine or "new romance") and like the chansons de geste, the romance dealt with traditional themes, above all three thematic cycles of tales, assembled in imagination at a late date as the Matter of Rome (actually centered on the life and deeds of Alexander the Great), the Matter of France (Charlemagne and Roland, his principal paladin) and the Matter of Britain (the lives and deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, within which was incorporated the quest for Holy Grail). The Acritic songs (dealing with Digenis Acritas and his fellow frontiersmen) resemble much the chanson de geste, though they developed simultaneously but separately."

One of the things I find so fascinating about this is how much trouble the entire genre is in. Butler clearly states romance can't include homosexuality, adultery, or anything identified by her as "immoral." (Damn, quotations sneaking in... must need more meds.) She has virtually eliminated all of romance's foundations. Our thrones, it appears, are built on sinking sand. Well, ain't that a bitch? Earliest romance was 12th century stuff absolutely packed with adultery, unfaithfulness, corruption of the CHURCH, and naughty people doing naughty things.

...romance isn't about
just any "two people"
celebrating "love in its many forms."
--Janet W Butler

Now, Ms. Butler is all about college education, which surprises me. Why? Those of us who went to a college from whence an application is not available on the back of a pack of matches (hehe) may remember that romance was defined before Ms. Butler usurped its leadership and dragged it off to a cage of quotations. What we recognize today as the modern romantic novel has its roots in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, based on the works of such writers as Anne Radcliffe and, later, the ever-lauded Jane Austen. Contemporary romance is considered, by the current literary canon, to include all romantic fiction. Again, Wikipedia says, "modern usage of Romance novel denotes a particular erotic style in a highly conventionalized modern genre, and its sub-genres in historical settings."

HANG ON! Erotic? Nononono! College educated, middle class American women do NOT engage in anything EROTIC! Well... they SHOULDN'T engage in anything erotic. It's unnatural. Janet is all about what's natural. She identifies "what comes naturally" (her quotations, not mine... I took the pill) as one man and one woman.

I watch Animal Planet. Nature is full of homosexuality, violence, dirt, and multiple partners. Scientists have also identified the human heredity of the world descended from 10 sons of a genetic Adam and 18 daughters of a genetic Eve. These original grand-parents lived in Africa and started to disperse outward around 144,000 years ago. The women had multiple partners, part of the natural selection that allowed the human race to form.

Dirty hos!

Many in the romance community disagree with Janet. Thank heaven, and thank you, romance writers. I did a little research and found the following responses out in the blogosphere:

Dear Author
Kate Rothwell
Sybil at Redwyne
Karen Scott
Joely Skye


I also, last week, bought a copy of Janet's most recent book, From the Ashes, which was given a really great review by somebody named... HEY!, Lois Butler. I wonder if they are related. It was only 50 cents, so I had it express shipped. It sucked, but that's just my opinion. If you are dying to read what romance is SUPPOSED to be, check it out. I prefer the corrupt, immoral, incorrectly done kind. The good news is you can pick up her paperback for as little as 33 cents. How cool is that? Used copies of smut have skyrocketed, but the morally superior stuff is dirt cheap!

This is How *I* Roll

How do you roll? Recently I added the HP Jornada 728 to my collection of much-beloved gadgets, and it has made writing a joy again. I swear by my AlphaSmart (below), but can't email, read ebooks, or do research on it. I can on my Jornada. It is exactly like a laptop, but smaller. Same shaped keyboard, modem, Outlook, and all the other bells and whistles. At 64 MB it does everything I need it to do in a tiny package. A traditionally shaped PDA can't hold a stylus to it!

My AlphaSmart 3000 is no-nonsense, bare-bones, and allows me to focus on WRITING, nothing else. This thing is incredibly light, indestructable, and has run on the same AAA batteries I bought over a year ago without a twitch. I bought a retractable USB cable that I chuck right into my Vera Bradley laptop case with the Alpha, my Jornada, and a pack of notecards, and I am invincible!

This combination has rendered my Toshiba laptop and just about everything else (except my desktop PC) useless to me. I'm rollin' with the perfect combo. So... how do you roll?

April Love Blog Skin

New from WebSong, a blog skin based on the painting April Love by Robert Hughes, a PreRaphaelite painter most widely known for Night and Her Train of Stars (also featured this month).

See it live here, and download the file:

FULL VIEW